View Ridge Middle School STEM students build and race dragsters

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In Tylor Hankins eighth grade science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) class, students work together to build and troubleshoot their dragsters. 

The challenge of the project was to be the fastest car to make it 20 feet down the hallway. Teams were awarded bonus points if the team could get the dragster to stop within 1 foot of the finish line. The students built driverless cars using VEX Robotics parts from bins. Using metal brackets, bars, sprockets, gears and wheels, the students worked in the programming language RobotC to program the cars to run the short, 20-foot course. 

Because each car had a unique design, they all had different results (both intended and not intended). Hankins moved from group to group, helping them pinpoint issues and find the best solutions. 

“This project has a lot of problem solving, a lot of variables and a lot of failure,” Hankins said. “But when there are problems, they can figure it out. This is the first real robot that they’ve built.  So it’s a learning process.” 



The dragster project will provide students with mechanical and programming skills they will need for future builds such as their next project, BattleBots. The diversity of the dragster design means the students will have an interesting race day. 

“It’s a fun project,” Hankins said.